2022-23 School Year–Week Thirty

It’s been a busy week! On Wednesday, we took a field trip to see the new “Soccer City” exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. It was pretty cool (we even got to see some very recent history, because they had the ball that scored the first goal for St. Louis City SC on display!), and there were some fun, hands-on activities including foosball and a soccer video game that I was truly terrible at!

Even though our main purpose for driving into the city was touring that exhibit, the best part of the day was exploring the Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape in Forest Park for the first time (plus a brief stop at Turtle Park). It’s a great outdoor space, and while we were there, we got to see a few owls from the World Bird Sanctuary in Vally Park, which was really interesting.

The rest of the week wasn’t quite so exciting. Ladybug solved equations with three variables in algebra 2, which wasn’t as difficult as she was expecting. We started a chapter on kinetics in chemistry and she learned about reaction rates and rate orders. She read about William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest in history (it was pretty exciting to learn about the first coronation at Westminster Abbey with the next coronation just over a week away!). In creative writing, she had to write a poem about a significant event (she chose COVID-19) within her lifetime. She started her last selection in literature, Everyman.

Chickadee continued to work with the metric system in math. We read more about dinosaurs in science, and I learned that Chickadee’s favorite dinosaur is the triceratops (mine is the maiasaura in case you were wondering). She started reviewing all of the poems she’s memorized this year (six of them!). We only have one chapter of Smoke on the Wind left.

Just two more weeks of school, and we’re hoping for two more field trips, too!

Chickadee Thursday

Yesterday we visited the Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape in Forest Park for the first time…it’s a fantastic place, and so much fun!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Chickadee Thursday

We stopped by Forest Park after church on Sunday to get a last glimpse of the fall color at Pagoda Circle. We weren’t expecting the amount of rain that was falling, but Chickadee was a good sport, and it was pretty in spite of the weather!

Wordless Wednesday

2021-22 School Year–Week Thirty

We started this school week with a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo! This is basically a spring tradition (except in 2020, which we don’t talk about), and I really look forward to this particular zoo trip every year!

We were fortunate to get see a fairly young Somali Wild Ass with her mother while we were there…she’s so cute!

While we were in Forest Park, we also stopped to see the tulips on Art Hill, which is one of my favorite spring scenes in St. Louis!

Ladybug learned about trigonometric functions in geometry. She read about the different classes of arthropods in biology. After completing the play last week, we finished our discussion of Henry V…she just has to complete her final paper on the book. In history, she read about Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, and Tiberius. We discussed the Analects of Confucius in her study of religious texts. She learned about the asteroid belt and the different types of asteroids in astronomy.

Chickadee created line, bar, and pictographs in math. She learned how to diagram interjections in grammar. We read about jellyfish and sea anemones in science. She learned about Texas and Oklahoma in geography. We started reading a book about the White House…we probably won’t get to go on a tour on our trip this summer, but I figure we might see it from the outside, so she should know something about it!

Just nine days left in the 2021-22 School Year!

2021-22 School Year–Outdoors Week!

I decided on a whim that this should be “Outdoors Week.” In addition to reading Little Women under the tree in our front yard, we participated only in activities that could be done outdoors, and I even came up with themes for each day!

Monday was “History and Nature.” We visited historic Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis and found C.F.W. Walther’s mausoleum. We also learned about his life and contributions to the Lutheran church in America.

Tuesday was “Art and Nature.” We went back into the city to walk around the Missouri Botanical Garden and Forest Park, and sketch some of the beautiful things we saw:

Wednesday was “Fitness and Nature.” We finally got back to the tennis court for the first time since before the pandemic began, and we also did a fitness course on a local walking trail.

Thursday was “Exploration and Nature.” We took a five-mile walk down some trails we’ve never used before, and also tried to identify some of the trees we saw along the way based on their leaves, pods, and nuts.

And today we took it easy, and ended the week by watching Little Women (the Winona Ryder version, because it’s my favorite), since we finally finished the book. We’ll get back to our regular work next week, but this was a really fun way to spend the first week of November!

Wordless Wednesday

Reformation Day/Halloween 2021

Today was the rare occasion where Reformation Day/Halloween actually falls on a Sunday. We started the day at church, where we enjoyed some especially amazing music featuring hymns written by Martin Luther:

We went for a short walk in Forest Park after the service, where we enjoyed the beautiful fall colors (in spite of the wind):

I was so excited to pick up a box of Monster Mash cereal for the Fab Five for breakfast!

This afternoon, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time, as well as It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. For dinner, I made potato-parsnip soup, cheese and jam turnovers, and butterbeer…it was the perfect meal for today!